Contessa in Costa Rica

I recently spent a week in Poretro to meet with contractors.  I do have some experience working with contractors during my years at Brotherhood Mutual so I feel like I could handle this portion of our project.  I had a general idea of the land and knew what we wanted the end result to work with.  We had a few items on the property that needed addressed and so I prepared myself and off I flew.  My sweet mother-in-law I arrived on a Sunday early afternoon and spent the afternoon and evening with some family in the area. I stayed with my sister-in-law Sandra and her family. We had a wonderful evening with my two sisters-in-law, my mother-in-law, a few cousins, and some stray nieces and nephews. I got to meet Eduardo's surprise brother they learned about a couple of years ago - Surprise! I learned some new Spanish words and discovered my sweet, kind, loving mother-in-law knew most of the English curse words. A fact that had me almost spewing my blueberry tea on the tabl

A few years ago, Eduardo and I started to talk about what kind of building we were going to build on our property.  We didn't want a huge house because it was just the two of us.  We wanted something large enough to comfortingly fit our lives. That included the normal house hold rooms plus an office for Eduardo and a studio for me. We were not planning on living the large life, just a simple retirement for Eduardo and someplace I can prosper at my work and run a cute rental business.  Our budget for the whole move and set up is $80,000.  I know this sounds ridiculously low, but keep in mind this is Costa Rica and there is a reason people vacation and move here. Here's your box.... The traditional house in Costa Rica is usually made one of two ways, block or prefab concrete construction.  These type of houses work well with available materials, weather, and earthquake requirements. They are traditionally smaller units with basic design.  While you can get more complex

The land we own is in Guanacaste, Costa Rica in a little town called Potrero on the Pacific side of the country.  Lets go over the long and short of where we are headed.   This is Central America.  Home to amazing things like coffee, coconuts, volcanoes, toucans, a really impressive canal, and my personal favorite thing in earth, SLOTHS!! Now Costa Rica is between Nicaragua and Panama. It is a beautiful country with two lovely coastlines and beautiful rain forests. Costa Rica is known for it's nature conservation efforts, the fact they are a country with no standing army, the lowest crime rate of any Central American country, the fact they have a diverse rain forest, and the high expat count since it's inexpensive, safe, and a overall lovely place. The providence of Guanacaste is on the north west side of the county.  It is known for it's short monsoon season of just two months, breathtaking beaches and vacation spots, the  Arenal  

Lets start this story with a little bit of romance. I met my husband the traditional way people of my generation meet and date others, by posting highly edited pictures on a dating website of myself looking slightly up at the camera so it looks like I'm not developing a second chin. Of course, I got the normal list of single men with hobbies like collecting Star Wars action figures or people who said hello with pictures of their genitals. (On a quick side note guys or girls for that matter, if you are considering sending said pictures to someone who does not state on their profile that they are looking for $@&% pics, don't send them. No, I changed my mind, just don't send them at all.  Have some respect or yourself and your genitals. Life lessons are free of charge.) Then a cute lil Latino man came along with the witty opening chat comment of "hello." We talked online for a while and that was decent. He finally asked me to dinner and said about 7 words